A Catch-All Conversation Between Yossarian and Doc Daneeka

Look at this headline, Doc. 'Saudi Princes
Planned To Down Air Force One With Missile'

This is bullshit! It came from a former al Qaeda member - he's a liar!

What if he said the U.S. was in imminent danger of a terrorist attack?

Then believe him.

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What if it was because he was tortured and said anything the torturer
wanted to hear?

It depends on what he said. If he said the first thing and slandered our
ally and great friends the Saudis, then he lied; if he said the second thing,
then believe him. See, there's a catch.

A catch?

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Yes, a catch. If a disreputable person such as a criminal or terrorist
says something we don't like, we don't have to believe him, because he's a
criminal or terrorist and therefore a liar and easily discredited. But if he
says something we like, about being a criminal or a terrorist, he's the utmost
authority, precisely because he's an experienced criminal or terrorist. There's
the catch. I think it's Catch-21, maybe 23, I can't remember, we're not
supposed to think or learn, or read subversive anti-war material, we're just
supposed to follow directions from those above us.

Oh, you mean like when that serial killer murdered all those women and
in his trial he said it was pornography that made him a serial killer and then
all the anti-porn people called for banning all porn, because who would know
better than a serial killer, but when that very religious guy killed his whole
family, referencing the Bible, believing that all innocents go to heaven while
also believing that he was sacrificing himself to eternal damnation by killing
them all and ensuring they'd go to heaven and some people claimed that if the
first example is true then the Bible is to blame in the second case and should
also be banned, but this valid logical comparison was overwhelmingly rejected
on the basis that the second guy was clearly crazy, rather than influenced by
the Bible, but the first guy was, in fact, influenced by porn, you mean like
that?

Catch-25, it's the best there is.

So, you mean like, when a country like Saudi Arabia beheads a woman for
being raped, rather than arresting and convicting the rapist we say nothing,
but when terrorists behead someone it's an egregious crime against humanity?

Yup. Catch-17.

Or like how when people in a commie country rise up against their commie
government dictators we should support them fully, but when people in, say,
Bahrain, rise up against their royal dictators, like America's founders did
against England in 1776, we should vilify them and aid the dictator in keeping
power, even as the dictator's army brutally crushes the democracy-advocating
dissenters?

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Sure. That's an easy one. Catch... whatever.

Or like how North Korea's death penalty is one of the worst human-rights
violations in the history of the world, but our death penalty, in which of the
cases reviewed, about a third of them were given to innocent people to
"close the case" and "administer justice" in the name of
the law, is fair and just?

Frank Silva speaks truth to power. A recovering Catholic, he is a member of his own Church, The Seventh-Day Pagans of the Church of the Latter Day Heathens. He is a former high school teacher with a Master's Degree from a University that cost (more...)

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